


peace or freedom?

by wmthackeray



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel's Handprint (Supernatural), Dean Winchester's Soul, Fix-It, Love Confessions, M/M, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, and i am exploiting it, bc you think i'm ending it that way? please, knuckle kisses bc im soft, soulmark, the handprint is a soul mark ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 17:46:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30042405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wmthackeray/pseuds/wmthackeray
Summary: "Just like that, huh?" he whispers. Cas squeezes his hands."Just like that," he says.vignettes of one dean winchester's life where he acquires a soulmate and a soulmark despite telling himself he'd never have either.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	peace or freedom?

**Author's Note:**

> this is for sabrina who asked me for this and it took me three months to write and i'm so sorry it took that long.

There is nothing Dean Winchester hates more than destiny. Well, maybe the dry mouth he can't shake after a night of one too many drinks. Or when fries are soggy -- what's the point of fried food that isn't crispy? And also when some asshole leers at Baby like he's gonna break a window --

Anyway. Dean hates destiny. Which is why he was just fine when his 18th birthday came and went and not a single thing appeared on his skin. Had something showed up, Dean would have taken great pains to hide it from John, who wore a thick leather bracelet over the pale grey soulmark on his wrist. Dean's memory wasn't good enough to remember it when it was just a raised pink shape -- when it had matched the one on his mom's wrist before that burned away along with all of the possibilities of their happy life.

When Dean had come out of the motel bathroom a few minutes after midnight , he put on a neutral face for Sammy, though something deep inside him stung a bit. Figures that the universe would deem him unlovable, huh?

"So," he said from his place on the bed, "do you have one?" The kid was eager, bless him.

"Nah, Sammy." At his crestfallen face, Dean had rushed to reassure him. "S'okay though, not like just anyone can be thrown into this life. Plus how'd I find them, with how much we're on the road? They really dodged a bullet here." He had plopped down on the bed next to his brother, slinging his arm across his shoulders, hoping he wouldn't comment on his lack of specificity (Dean hadn't known he was going to say it until he did). "But don't worry about you, Sammy. If any Winchester was going to be picked by destiny and have it work out, it's you."

And now, as he watches his father's pyre burn, his body still wracked with being almost dead, he lets himself be angry. It was John's love for Mary that turned into something dark, something obsessed, something that ruined their lives. He can't imagine that his mom wanted it to end like this for her soulmate -- the man who had once impressed her with Led Zeppelin and a crooked smile. It's clear to Dean that some people just aren't meant for love. Maybe Winchesters are those kinds of people. He never asked Sammy if he got a mark, part of him still afraid to in case Jess carried a matching one. The flames of John Winchester's funeral are warm, but Dean feels cold and alone. Fuck whoever created destiny. At least when he dies he won't be leaving anyone behind.

___

Well, fast forward to Dean crawling out of his own grave and finding that he is not only a whole lot of not dead but that something -- some _one_ \-- pulled him out of Hell.

And on his shoulder? A handprint -- like someone had gripped him hard, gripped him with purpose. The mark is seared into him but does not feel out of place on his freckled skin. It is red, raised, but it is not angry. It is...warm, and as he stares at it, Dean's mind goes unbidden to a thought he often squashes down -- a thought he has not had in a long time.

The handprint is what he imagined a soulmark to be.

Dean does what any rational man who denies the role of destiny in his life would do -- he ignores it. He ignores how it seems to gently pulse as he makes his way back to Sam and Bobby. He ignores how it throbs when he and Pamela do their disastrous ritual -- the last look she ever gives him is one of knowing when he pulls up his sleeve. He ignores that, too. Or at least he tries to.

Because looking down and seeing the thing he's fought, the thing he's been taught to spit in the face of, the thing that ruined his family...well. He's not about to do something wild like deal with it.

When Castiel enters the barn and everything changes, Dean's mark pulses in time with his heart. But he's thinking about other things, understandably, though something deep inside him stretches taught when Castiel's eyes -- blue, _so_ blue -- flick to his shoulder and back, as if they can see through his jacket, even through his skin to his very soul. It's almost enough to make him blurt out something like _did you mark me you asshole_ but he doesn't because he is, truly, scared shitless. So he fires and stabs and yells and feels like he knows even less than he did before by the time it's over.

And as life goes off the rails again and this time the stakes are through the roof, Castiel becomes a part of their ragtag crew and brings plenty of baggage of his own. Dean tells himself it's easy to ignore the way his shoulder pulses when the angel -- Cas, now -- continues to show up in the unpredictable way of his. And Dean has always been good at ignoring things, so he adds this to the list. He wonders if the melee of winged assholes he meets can tell, considering they seem to give him a once over that makes him feel dirty every time they see him. Is he imagining Cas's jaw twitching when it happens?

___

When Anna straddles him in the backseat of Baby, she stills at the sight of the handprint on his shoulder. Carefully, almost reverently, she presses her palm to it. Dean doesn't have to look to know that her hand doesn't come close to filling it.

"Dean," she whispers. He knows she's barely touching it but even still her palm feels like a heavy thing, and Dean finds he has to swallow before he can answer her. "Don't," he breathes out. "It doesn't matter." Because Dean is desperate, Dean is lonely, Dean is barely hanging on these days. "But...this is..." Anna stops herself, looks at him. "You know what this is." Dean jerks his chin up once before reaching over to gently but firmly grab her wrist and bring her palm up to his face instead. "Doesn't matter. Never played by destiny's rules, not starting now." His voice is rough from what they've been doing but also because every time he tell himself this lie it doesn't seem to get any easier. Though Anna's pupils are blown, Dean can tell by the downturn of her lips that she considers naming what -- _who --_ exactly Dean is running from. But for some reason she decides she doesn't care, or that she doesn't care _enough_ , because she cups his cheek and brings her mouth back down to his.

But every time she touches it from then on, the handprint feels cold.

__

The first time Dean is told that Castiel is dead he doesn't believe it. His gut reaction is to scoff because how can Chuck know better than Dean as to Castiel's whereabouts? Dean is his....well. _Yeah_ , he thinks. That's just the truth. But his shoulder is warm as usual, so Chuck can tell him all he wants that Cas is dead but he knows better.

But when he sees Cas explode with his own eyes at the snap of Lucifer's fingers, he feels it. There's a lot going on but the moment it happens pierces through everything and Dean feels it deep in his chest. It's like all of a sudden a huge part of him feels empty -- there's an absence, a void, a huge gaping hole. His shoulder feels so cold the second that Cas dissolves into nothing that he gasps. But there's no time -- there's never enough time -- and all Dean does is continue his chant of _fuck fuck fuck fuck_ to himself as he tries to save the god damned world.

And when it's over, after Sam leaps into the hole in the ground and as blood drips down a million openings on his face and Dean wonders how long it'll take him to die if he just sits here, Castiel's fingers touch his forehead and the surface wounds of what might be the worst day of Dean's life heal. The numb of his shoulder disappears immediately. When they're in the Impala after -- driving somewhere, always fucking driving somewhere, thinks Dean -- and Castiel asks him, _What would you rather have? Peace or freedom?_ Well, how can he answer that? Before he opens his mouth, he's alone again. _Fuck_. Out of habit he reaches his left hand under the collar of his shirt to rest on his shoulder -- something he'd started doing when he was alone not long after he clawed his way back to life -- and he finds his skin so smooth he almost drives off the road.

His handprint is gone.

___

Dean tries not to think about what he has lost as he lies in bed next to Lisa. But he can't help it -- his whole life is carved around the ghost of a woman who never really existed the way anyone remembered her and and so what else is there to do but think about what's gone and how it's his fault? He deserves the blame, he thinks, but Lisa and Ben sure as hell don't deserve to deal with him as he carries it around like a fucking albatross. So while he thinks about Sammy and Dad and Adam and the whole damn world, he does a bang up job not thinking about how that empty space in his chest isn't empty anymore, hasn't been since Cas popped back into existence and laid two fingers on his forehead. So when he leaves the little house and the lawn he mows every Sunday and the kid he's begun to think of as his, Dean isn't sure exactly how to rationalize it other than that kind of life was never going to be for him. Not that it did much good for them, in the end.

So once he's back on the job, every time Cas touches Dean's shoulder it feels like it did before; warm, pulsing, plucking a string deep inside of him. But Cas says nothing, so Dean says nothing. Much easier to imagine burying it in every grave he digs, burning it with every ghost ganked, washing it away with every sore, exhausted shower. But Dean knows better. His shoulder is clear, but he's pretty sure whatever makes him feel the loss of the handprint keenly has burrowed its way much deeper, seared its way onto whatever mess resides within his chest. Dean doesn't want to go so far as to say that he has a soul, but whatever it in its place sure feels fucked up. And he hates it. But there are things to do, monsters to kill. A fucked up brother to deal with.

And in the middle of it there's Cas, it always comes back to Cas, pulling away from him but Dean doesn't want to think that it's what everyone says, that he's being betrayed and blindsided and Cas is a turncoat in a tan trenchcoat. And then it is what they all said, and he's had to trick his best friend into telling him the truth and all he can do is walk away. But fuck if his shoulder doesn't burn -- why does it keep doing that if he's been wiped clean? -- and it sure as hell isn't the holy fire he's used to trap Cas, to get him to tell Dean he's been right to trust him, that he was right to believe in him. And so he turns back to look.

The look in Cas's eyes is what will haunt Dean when he is told it was all for him. What about Dean inspires bloodshed and betrayal? The look in Cas's eyes will haunt Dean when the angel he's called his brother -- which felt wrong coming out of his mouth -- heals Lisa, when he wipes Dean from her and Ben's lives. The look in Cas's eyes will haunt Dean when he proclaims himself God.

And fuck if the look in Cas's eyes over the fire Dean put between them -- or did Cas do that? -- doesn't haunt him when Cas walks into the river, evil itself leaking from his eyes, his ears, his mouth. Dean stands on the bank, picks up the trench coat that washes up at his feet, and thinks that he should have been used to the deep, endless pit he feels, the phantom burn on his shoulder, since he's felt it before. But it's as fresh as ever, fresh enough that Dean clings to the coat and wonders if he should have said something, because this time it felt like Dean had something to say. But as always, there was no god damned time. And so instead he carries the coat with him and doesn't think about how it's as close to a handprint as he can get.

___

Dean would be lying if he said he didn't know whenever Cas blipped back into existence every single time. But damn, he doesn't want to make a big deal of it because what if he's wrong? He's never told anyone about what he thinks the handprint was, what he thinks he and Cas must be. Not least because it sounds crazy even for him -- hey Sammy, I think our best friend, you know the angel of the Lord who pulled me out of hell, might be my soulmate! And, get this, man, I think I'm in love with him!

No fucking thank you.

So sue Dean for thinking it is a cosmic joke most of the time. And so when he lays eyes on Cas at the bottom of the front steps of a house that looked like a life Dean had not that long ago, not a hint of recognition in his blue, blue eyes, Dean wants to laugh. He want to laugh and he wants to punch God in the face. And, shit, even though it's as fucked as it can be, Dean inhales and it feels like the first breath he's taken in months.

And so it goes.

So it fucking goes when Dean and Cas have what Dean considers the shittiest vacation ever in Purgatory. Every single day, he's sending out prayers like it's the god damned _Notebook_ knowing that he won't get a reply. But as long as that piece of him throbs, aches, pulses, he knows that Cas is alright.

"How do you know he ain't dead yet?" Benny asks him, cleaning his blade on the shirt of a leviathan he just sliced.

Dean doesn't look at him as he thinks about it. What is there to lose by admitting it? If he can't be honest with himself in Purgatory, he doesn't deserve to find Cas anyway.

"We're uh...marked. Or I guess he marked me." What happens to someone's mark when they become a monster, Dean wonders? Well, he only has to look in the mirror to figure that one out. "I can feel him, kind of. That he's alive, anyway."

Dean looks up and Benny's got a neutral expression, as if he knows Dean wouldn't be able to take his pity. "Whatever works, man. If you say he's out there, I guess he's out there."

Reunions are nothing new to Dean, especially when it comes to Cas, but he lets this one soak over him like hope itself when they find him by the river. Touching him is as it always is -- a part of Dean's brain sounds the alarm as the piece of him marked by Cas sings, warms, preens. Maybe when they get out of here he'll do something about that.

But -- a fucking classic, this one -- Dean gets out and Cas doesn't. The second that he gets back he feels it -- different than when Cas was dead the times before, but still gut-wrenching. It feels like he left a piece of himself in Purgatory. Which, well, he kind of did. And it makes him _angry_ more than anything. How could Cas just let go like that, leaving Dean to yet again deal with the fucking ridiculous turmoil in his chest they they _still have not talked about_. But that's just how Dean's life goes right?

He feels like he can now measure it in times Cas has died and come back. Times that he has been scooped out so wholly that he felt like collapsing and times when he has been yanked back to life by the invisible tether that exists in his soul. Despite how much the world falls apart around him, the people they lose and the once they gain, the times they fail and the blood he washes off of his hands, it all comes back to Cas. And fuck if that doesn't make him guilty -- to let everything in him be consumed by just one...guy. One angel. His soulmate. Fuck.

Though Dean has to amid that he tends to ignore anything that Cas does that might make him hopeful that them being soulmates is something they could...act on, sometimes it gets too much to ignore. And when he's on his knees -- on his knees _again_ , not for the last time, he's sure, and he'd make a dick joke but it would feel insincere because since when has kneeling before Cas felt anything less than holy -- waiting for death at the hands of the one who brought him back to life, he wonders at how the bond wasn't enough to save them.

But then it is enough. Dean thinks _I love you_ but he says _I need you_ and honestly, isn't that the same in Winchester speak? And it's just the fucking thing, actually, and Dean is clutching Cas and Cas is cupping his face and then it's over. It's over but it's also just starting and Dean feels like collapsing because what is he meant to do now? Surely Cas understands. Does he need Dean to say it again? He will, he thinks. He will, if it means they can start now.

And then Cas is gone.

___

In midst of the newest worst time in Dean's life, full of shame and anger and hurt, he walks into a room and seconds later Cas is dead. That's a first for him, so quick and unexpected that he wants to claw at his chest, stop the cold that's spreading, the cold he's known before, that'll drag him under. So before it can he does another unthinkable thing to add to the list he's accumulating, and then Cas isn't dead. And Dean thinks ok, maybe this can work. Maybe I can finally take care of him, keep an eye on him, teach him to be human. Buy him clothes, cook him food, guide him through this shit show.

But thinking that he could have something good seems to summon the wrath of the universe that hates Dean so much, because then he ruins it all. He knows, he _knows,_ that he wants Cas to stay and that Cas doesn't want to leave, but he makes it happen anyway because he's just not sure how to fight for something else. He tears down his own fantasy with his bare hands, and he thinks, selfishly, that even if Castiel is gone in this way Dean will know he's alive. Though Cas has fallen, the bond between them remains the same and Dean feels a sick sense of satisfaction that not even humanity could tear them apart. Only Dean can do that, apparently.

__

When Lucifer stabs Cas through the back, Dean feels it. He feels it like he's the one being stabbed, like his own eyes are bursting at the seems and he's going to look down and see wings on the ground next to him. And he does see those wings, but they're not his. He's looking at Cas crumpled in the dirt like something someone thew away and all Dean can think about is how Cas's wings must have cradled him every time they hugged, protected him when he didn't know it. He wonders what they felt like -- will he dream tonight of being taken out of hell? Of blood and fire and feathers?

This death feels different. Maybe it's because Lucifer did it, maybe it's because Cas was supposed to be here for this part of the fuckery. Maybe it's because Dean doesn't see a way out of this one -- God sure as hell isn't going to show up and put things back to rights now. And who else have they got on their side? No one. Dean falls to his knees -- always on his knees -- and lets the coldness inside him spread. His shoulder aches in a way it hasn't in years. He brings his hand -- he's shaking, ears buzzing, barely noticing as Sam runs back inside to deal with whatever they've got to deal with now -- and brings it to Cas's face. He's already cooling, leaving Dean behind in this life that's now firmly a mirror of his father's. He's lost what he cares most about after all, and it's clearer than ever that he'll never get over it.

Dean knows that without the gentle burn in his soul he won't be warm again -- not even later, as he stands by the pyre that burns Cas, that burns away all the chances Dean has missed, let go, spurned, the pyre that Dean considers throwing himself into, just for a second. He closes his eyes and all he can see is the blade through Cas's chest, the light of his death almost blinding but Dean couldn't look away, had to witness what he had nightmares about, the thing he'd seen before but this time was the truth.

And then. It's always and then, always something else Dean never expects. And this time, well. This time, like all the other times, it's Cas. Dean feels it the second he's back, but who can blame him for thinking it's the alcohol, the anger? That it's his own mind playing tricks on him. Fuck knows it wouldn't be the first time.

But sure enough, he gets the call and then he's driving, blowing through backroad stop signs and red lights and ignoring speed limits, driving to a god damned payphone and there, underneath the street light like the second fucking coming is Cas. Dean breathes. He lets the warmth in his chest flare and spread and grow.

__

But. Always a but in Dean's life because Winchester's don't get happy endings, remember? He should never have forgotten that lesson.

Dean lets out a hysterical chuckle at the thought of Cas being in the Empty. Isn't that where Dean is now? The vastness of the void inside of him sure as hell feels a lot like endless nothing.

Dean feels a vice close around his throat and though he's been choked out before -- and not in a fun way -- this time feels worse because his vision isn't fading, his lungs are still working, but the mess inside of him feels like it's going to kill him.

Fuck. _Fuck_. He thought that seeing Cas stabbed through the chest by the devil was bad. But this? This is the worst thing Dean has ever felt. He feels insane saying so, since he's been on the racks of hell, become a demon, possessed by an archangel. But it's true. He looks down at his shoulder and sees the bloody handprint directly over where he was marked all those years ago. This one hurts to look at. Dean wants to burn his jacket but also never take it off, never wash it, to look at it every day until his last -- which might be soon -- and remember this. Remember what he lost because he was stupid, because he was a coward, because he refused to face the single greatest force in his life.

"Cas," he breathes out. What is he supposed to do now?

_I love you_ , Cas had said. Dean had known it, really, deep down. Come one, they're _soulmates_! Well, they were. And fuck if that doesn't hurt. But hearing Cas say it to him was something else. To know that he, Dean, was the one thing Cas wanted above all else but thought he couldn't have. What a fucking thing to say, huh? He thuds his head against the wall and buries his face in his hands. What a fucking thing to say.

And if he had time, what would he have said back? After all this time, would he have been honest? Would he have told Cas that he's felt a handprint on his heart ever since they met? That he's had a suspicion that destiny has nothing to do with this profound bond, that it was all them the whole time? That they tore the set plot of their lives that God had written over and over to shreds and made it their own, down to the final moment?

Dean will never know what he would have said, though. Because Cas is dead and God himself is out to get him and fuck if he doesn't want to just go down swinging.

___

And then, one day, it's over. All of the bullshit parts of their lives that have been haunting them for years is done with. Sure, there will still be hunts and people will still get hurt. They'll lose sometimes, because when has winning ever worked out for them. But fuck, thinks Dean, it sure feels like they won.

He's leaning against the wall in the war room, listening to everyone he loves talk and drink and laugh. They'd all been working hard the last few weeks, researching and worrying about him, though he's sure they think he didn't notice, and it had been a god damned success. Cas was back. Everyonethought that was worth a party and Dean can't say he disagrees. He takes a sip of his beer and looks at his family: Sam and Eileen interested mostly in each other in the corner; Claire and Kaia and Patience and Alex laughing loudly with Charlie at one end of the table, Donna and Jodi and Bobby at the other. Jack, leaning on the metal beams opposite Dean, looking at everything with a sweet, boyish smile on his fact. God, thinks Dean. Literally.

And Cas. Next to his son, casual and relaxed in his combo of the new jeans they bought this week and one of Dean's shirts. The sight of him makes Dean breathe easy as anything. And he realizes that he wants to talk to Cas about it. The handprint. Somehow they never have, still throughout all the shit they'd been piled in over the years, even in that room when Cas told him everything else, even when Dean's bloody hands gripped him tight and pulled him back to life -- but what's stopping them now?

So Dean lets the night go by, everyone slowly drifting to the bedrooms they've claimed, filling this space that's now theirs to fill. _My family_ , Dean thinks, as Sam and Eileen are the last ones to disappear with a soft goodnight. _Not bad_.

And then it's Jack and Dean and Cas bringing beer bottles to the kitchen, Jack telling Cas about the wild stuff he's up to upstairs, and Dean just looking at them like he was before, but this time Jack catches it.

"I'm going to go, but I'll be back tomorrow to say bye to everyone before they leave," he says, breaking his conversation with Cas. He smiles at Dean then, knowing and soft. "Thanks for inviting me."

"We love you, Jack," says Cas. Jack raises his hand in a wave and disappears.

Dean clears his throat. "Kid knows how to make an exit," he says. Cas fills two glasses with water and hands one to Dean. "He does," he says, taking a sip and a seat at the table. Dean follows. _Well_ , he thinks. _Here goes._

"Cas," he manages. Both hands wrapped around his water glass, he tells himself to look up, that he's got nothing to lose here. Nothing to lose because he's already lost everyone before but now it's over and they're safe and nothing is hanging over them, not destiny, not God, not the end of the world.

"Dean," Cas replies, and Dean looks up. As always, Cas's gaze is steady, totally focused on Dean like he's the only thing in the room. His chest throbs with the same sweet, warm ache he's grown to treasure. It takes him a few seconds to snap out of it, but Cas has always been patient with him. Especially when he didn't deserve it -- which, Dean knows, has been most of their time together.

"I....Can I ask you something?" Cas doesn't even answer, just nods, as if Dean should know that the answer is always going to be yes. "Alright. Well, uh, do you remember when you pulled me out?" He doesn't clarify, but he knows Cas will get it.

"Of course I do, Dean," he says, and Dean feels like he's choking on the earnestness of Cas's voice. "How could I forget?" He smiles something sweet and small, a smile Dean is getting used to thinking is only for him. Because they've been doing this dance for a bit now -- no, they didn't talk about Cas's confession when they yanked him back from the Empty, human and exhausted. They didn't talk about it when Jack explained how they did it, that Chuck was gone and what he was doing in heaven and all the rest. But the past few weeks have been anything but the awkwardness Dean imagined. Instead, it's been something soft, something sweet. It's been coffee in the mornings and laundry in the afternoons and buying herbs and walking Miracle and Sam and Eileen organizing the bunker and Cas watching reruns of the X-Files and Dean watching him. And Cas smiling at him like he's doing now over steaming cups, in the aisles of the grocery store, across Baby's front seat, in the dark while they're washing dishes. And Dean...well. Dean knows that Cas knows. But he wants to talk about it because they've spent a long time not saying what needed to be said and Dean thinks that Cas deserves to hear it.

"You gave me the handprint." Cas looks away, though the smile is still at the edges of his lips.

"I did."

"Why?" At this, Cas's mouth falls into something of a frown and his eyes drive to Dean's shoulder.

"I...don't know. I was largely an accident, a product of putting you back together body and soul, which took work since you were fighting me the whole time." Dean chews on the inside of his cheek. He doesn't remember much of his ascent from hell -- flashes, sometimes, when he's dreaming. It was hot and loud and he felt like he was suffocating. The weeks after Cas died, Dean would dream of feathers, every time. Being put back together after he had cracked on the rack wasn't something he wanted because he was afraid of what he had become. But Cas had done it -- an angel, a being as old as time, had pieced him back together and stamped his seal on Dean, the righteous man, and then showed up in his life looking like a tax accountant to clean up his messes for the next decade. And _Jesus_ , if that doesn't make his heart ache.

"Did you know it was a soulmark?" Dean blurts out. Fuck, he can't believe they've never talked about this.

Cas looks at him this time and tilts his head in that familiar way. "Perhaps not in the moment, but yes. I came to realize quickly that I had bonded our souls together on accident." Dean lets out a breath. On accident. Well.

"Is that why you took it away? When you healed me?" Just as before, just as in all of their conversations about things that aren't about this, Dean doesn't need to clarify. Cas is right there with him, knowing what he means.

"I thought you didn't want it. You had not said anything, and I had seen inside of you, Dean, at the start. I knew what you thought about... destiny. And you didn't give me much reason to think our bond was an exception." Cas told Dean he loved him right before he was gooped up by the cockblockiest entity in the universe, but wow, this one hurts a little. But Dean knows he deserves it. He has no right to be hurt over a mark on his skin, considering Cas left their souls bonded anyway. Did he do that on purpose, or was Dean in so deep by then that there was no backing out, no way to reverse what had already planted roots and sprouted?

"Did I ever told you what Chuck said to me right after Jack took the reigns?" he says instead. Dean traces the rim of his glass with his index finger and tries not to wish he was holding a beer bottle so he could pick at the label.

Cas shakes his head. Dean had told him the basics about how it went down, willing Sam and Jack to let him do this part in his own time.

Dean sighs, stalling. "Bastard is off somewhere rotting and we're still talking about him and all that he did to us. Figures."

"Dean," says Cas softly. "What did Chuck say to you that you have not already told me?"

"He said that I was never meant to have a soulmark. After seeing how badly my parents had gone despite Heaven's damn meddling, they decided I wasn't worth the effort." Dean swallows. "Figures people were giving up on me before I was even born." Cas says nothing, and if he did Dean doesn't know if he'd hear him. He plows on, in his own head. "That's the thing that pisses me off, right? That my parents were supposed to be this grand love story tied together by fate itself and my whole life was fucked because my dad was so out of his mind with losing his soulmate."

"And then Chuck tells me that soulmates are just another thing that angels decided would be fun. It's all just a game to them." Dean realizes he's talking about angels like Cas was never one, but he shows no signs of minding. Dean rolls his shoulder, embraces the way it's throbbing. Finds comfort in it.

"Anyway," he says, not backing down now, "Chuck's telling me all this and I'm not sure why he is because he's rolling around in the dirt as we decide whether or not to gank him but then he gets angry all of a sudden, glaring at me. And he gets all quiet and he asks me if I know why he's telling me all this. And I'm like, Chuck, fuck if I know, man. Get on with it. And behind me I hear the kid say something real soft, and Chuck goes, 'That's right Jack. Cas.'"

Dean's throat goes a little dry and he bravely manages to keep his voice from cracking on the last word. He takes a sip of water.

"Me?" asks Cas, eyes wide. "What about me?"

Looking very intensely at his hands, Dean says, "Well. Chuck then says something about how you...always fucked shit up, showing up over and over when he didn't put you in the story. And the worst one was you...marking me. He was so pissed, man, and he uh, he said that you shouldn't have been able to mark me at all. That I had been made unmarkable, or some shit. That because heaven didn't give us the official pass it shouldn't have happened."

He looks up at Cas, and he's all business. Head tilted, eyebrows furrowed, staring at Dean as his mind is moving a million miles a minute behind his eyes. "So you're saying that Chuck admitted that...the soulmark I gave you was the only pure soulmark...ever created in existence?"

Dean's cheeks heat immediately. "Well shit, Cas, when you put it like that..."

"Is that not what you took from that conversation?" Cas doesn't betray anything on his face, his voice deep and sure.

"I...yeah. Yeah, I did think...uh...something like that." Cas hums and looks away, taking a sip of his own water.

"Why did you want to tell me this?" he asks. Dean's face is still hot, and damn if it doesn't get hotter when he realizes he's really going to say it.

"Well, I guess I just wanted to see what you thought about that. That Chuck confirmed that we fucked up his whole plan by being...us. You and me." He swallows again, looks at Cas dead on. "This profound bond fucked with God's plan."

Cas flashes him a smile at him, sweet and quick before looking serious again. He leans forward on the table, one hand reaching out slowly, slow enough for Dean to pull away. Though his breath hitches, he doesn't move, and Cas folds his palm over Dean hand where it's clutching his glass. "Soulmates and soulmarks and profound bonds aside, Dean, I'd choose you every time. Without any of that. I chose you without realizing it, back when I pulled you out. But every time after that was on purpose. With purpose." Dean feels his nose start to sting because, _Jesus Christ_ , what is he supposed to do with that?

"Cas..." he says softly, turning his hand so they're palm to palm on the table. Cas lets out a soft breath. "Cas," stronger now, green eyes on blue. Dimmer than when he was an angel, but still so, so blue.

"I've been choosing you, too. Every damn time. You get that?" Cas squeezes his hand and Dean brings his other to cover it. "I know that it's almost never been enough, and almost always too late, but I do. And I...want to keep choosing you." Cas looks like he wants to protest , but lets Dean continue, His nose is really stinging now because fuck if this doesn't feel like the biggest thing he's ever done.

"You know, this bond...thing," he says, pulling his hand away for just a moment to gesture in the air between them, "it made me uh, connected to you. I think. In a way that meant that I felt it every time you died."

Cas says nothing for a moment, but he looks tense, as if he's remembering something.

"It was the same for me, Dean. I felt it too, when you died. Which, I'll remind you, you are rather good at doing." He smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes.

"Well I guess I don't have to tell you how it felt, right?" Dean says, quiet. "How it felt...cold, dark, empty. Like I felt you take a part of me with you when you'd leave. And when you'd come back it was like breathing again." Cas squeezes his hand.

"Yes," he says. God, Dean wants them to talk about something less depressing, but he has to know more.

"Do you uh, do you have a mark or something?" he asks. Cas shakes his head and a part of Dean is disappointed, though he doesn't know how he'd have marked Cas anyway. It's not like his palm was red or anything to match Dean's shoulder, right?

"Not really. When I was an angel I could see souls, and yours was no exception, other than it was always the brightest." He smiles at Dean, and this time it reaches his eyes. "I could see my handprint on your shoulder when it was there as a scar, and I could see my grace mixed with your soul in a way that I knew was something different, something pure. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

Dean starts. "Is?"

"I'm human now but...I can still see your soul, Dean. But only yours. I guess my version of the soulmark is just that." Dean feels his cheeks heat. Just that? _Christ_. Cas can see his soul? He wants to feel embarrassed but he can only feel awe.

"Is that how you knew that you had...bonded us? Because you could see the mark when you pulled me out? Or did you feel it?" he asks.

"Seeing it was an indicator, yes. But it's always just felt like what I feel now." His brow furrows. "Well, not always. I didn't know what it was in the beginning, but once I understood it, I knew that's just how it was always going to be. I've always been in love with you, Dean."

The air leaves Dean's lungs.

"Just like that, huh?" he whispers. Cas squeezes his hands.

"Just like that," he says. z

"Cas, I just...fuck, man. I love you so much I don't know what to do with it. You know that, right?" Cas's eyes look a bit glassy, but he's smiling softly at Dean, like this is the least surprising truth in the world, like Dean has just welcomed him home after a long day with open arms.

"Yes, Dean," he says, his other hand joining the tangle they've made on the table, gripping each other desperately. "I know."

Hands only trembling a bit, eyes stinging, Dean lifts the tangle and brings it towards him, softly, slowly, to press a kiss to Cas's knuckles.

**Author's Note:**

> did that make sense? lmk how you're feeling my d00ds. show ended literally four months ago but i'm here still. i've got like, 20 draft fics that make sad when i write them but uh, watch this space and maybe you'll see them soon. : ) luv u


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